[Photography by Steve Thomas]

“Cycling is not a hobby, it’s a way of life!” It made perfect sense to me right then, and some 40 years on, even more so. That was towards the end of a six-hour winter training ride with an older clubmate. We were discussing why what we did – race bikes, and live purely for cycling, why others (non-cyclists) couldn’t accept it, or simply didn’t get it.

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Things were very different back then in cycling terms, particularly in the UK. Cycling was a minority and working-class sport at best, and those of us who wore the funny clothes, the peaked hats, and shaved our legs, well, we were mostly considered third-class oddballs, who would eventually grow out of it. 

My cycling obsession started with the freedom I found as a kid riding my purple Chopper (which I wrote about on road.cc), and the adventures we went on would still have me thinking twice today. Follow that up as a 12-year-old getting a racing bike for Christmas (also on road.cc), and despite being a regular kid who had never even seen a real cyclist before, from that moment on, cycling became my life. There were no compromises, despite others' attempts to put the brakes on it.

DSCF9255.jpg, by Liam Mercer

That bike gave an otherwise average kid freedom, it opened up a world of adventure, and - win or lose, riding bikes was all I wanted to do from then on, and it’s still pretty much the case nowadays. Racing was not on my original agenda, but I was kind of edged into it, which almost put off the whole sport, though racing soon became the essence of my homebrewed cycling sauce. Taking off, totally against the odds, and flying solo, somehow, I managed to etch out a life, a strange way of life, based around racing and riding bikes.

This was always fuelled by that original sense of adventure and has led me to almost every corner of the world, riding most disciplines, and on many kinds of bikes.
Flat bars, dopped bars, uphill, downhill, it makes little difference to me – and the same goes for my lifelong following of cycling; be it a Kriss Kyle BMX in the sky video, a World Cup XCO race, the Tour de France, or a crazy YouTuber riding a Chopper across the desert, I lap them all up with the enthusiasm I had as a 12-year-old.

The demographic, the cost, and the options to take up and get into cycling are more varied and extreme than ever now, and – I guess, the period of life when you found the sport, and at what age, all play a part in your own personal relationship and reasoning with bikes. 

Back then, it was flat dropped bars or nowt. There were few potential future rewards, no devices, no stats, and absolutely no “soft porn angled” influences dancing on flashy Colnarellos wearing skimpy zip half down kit while wearing bold lipstick and face paint. Cycling simply was not cool back then – or at least not in the UK.

Uk201420140309_0459.jpg, by Liam Mercer

Most weeks, I do end up in conversation with fellow cyclists of all ages and demographics, and although I rarely write about it, we almost always get on to why and what it means to us. For many it was my self-same lead into cycling, for others it’s always been about performance and numbers, while in certain parts of the world cycling is seen only as a form of exercise, while fancy bikes and kit are a “cool” status symbols too, so you can imagine their faces when this gnarly old fella on a scruffy and creaking bike and in cheap kit passes them.

Riding bikes was also a great societal, class, and age leveller – and still is, just in a different way and extent. Without meaning to sound overdramatic, to many of us, riding bikes is very much at the centre of our existence. Though some may scoff at that, there is little doubt that, to differing degrees, whatever kind of cyclist we are, those wonderful machines are ingrained within us. 

If only we could get the global leaders out on tandem MTBs for a weekend at Coed y Brenin, then I’m sure the world would become a brighter place to live.

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